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Countering Dow's greenwashing: Join us!

This week Dow Chemical launched yet another greenwashing PR campaign. On the same day, author Anna Lappé — who's critical contribution to Dow's "virtual conference" on the future of water had been rejected — launched a people's online discussion of how to create a sustainable future, inviting PAN to participate.

Our Co-Director Kathryn Gilje was delighted to contribute to Lappé's forum, with a 60-second video describing the future PAN works toward daily. Other contributors include the National Young Farmers Coalition, Corporate Accountability International, and Food and Water Watch.

A few weeks's back Lappé, who's with the Small Planet Institute, was asked by Dow to contribute to their The Future We Create project. She did. Her one-minute video focused on the fact that chemicals in our environment are one of the biggest threats to water sustainability — and that Dow Chemical itself has a long history of water pollution.

Dow's PR firm asked her to re-record her message. Instead, she created a people's version of A Future We Create, soliciting initial contributions from groups on the frontlines of promoting a just, sustainable future. That invitation is now extended to anyone who's inspired to upload a video with their vision of a future we should all be working to create.

Lappé is clear in her video statement about what's missing in Dow's discussion of a sustainable future:

The future we should be creating is one in which no one has to worry about whether the water we drink is tainted by Dow chemicals, many of which are reported to be carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, or neurotoxins.

She also encouraged the company to put "even a fraction of the resources it spends on marketing into cleaning up communities whose water it has polluted."

Dow Chemical is currently involved in multiple lawsuits filed by communities seeking cleanup from contamination with Dow products — including the company's hometown of Midland, Michigan.

Dow's pesticide legacy includes production of the controversial defoliant Agent Orange, the pesticide chlorpyrifos (known as Dursban or Lorsban) which has been banned for home use but is still widely used and agriculture, and 2,4-D, which is found in many common lawncare products.

Join us » We encourage GroundTruth readers to add comments and upload videos on Lappé's YouTube channel, sharing personal visions of a healthier future. As Kathryn Gilje notes in her statement: "At PAN, we work for real food and good health — from the ground up." And that means you!